When I used to bike tour, I discovered an interesting thing. If I was pedalling up a mountain, I would project into the future how miserable I was feeling. Suddenly, it wasn’t just the mountain that was hard, EVERYTHING else would be just as hard, in my mind. Finding a place to camp? Miserable. Going […]
It seems to be a pretty well known fact: if a child is suddenly quiet in another room, chances are that said child is up to no good. Some people learn this the hard way, thinking, “Ah, at last, Susie is self-entertaining, and I can relax!” Then they discover that the “self-entertaining” resulted in quiet […]
We have a highly exuberant dog whose maniacal barking got out of control. Nothing we tried was helping, so we bought one of those citronella collars that squirts her on the chin when she barks. When she had it on for the first time, she did not make the connection that it was her barking […]
What is it like to be a fish, swimming around in the day-to-day, looking for some food, when all of a sudden, there’s a big, delectable worm floating right there in your face? Maybe it seems like the food is chasing you around. An irresistible feast is dangling right there before your eyes. So, you […]
Sometimes, we pay much attention to the things in life that are going badly, or that we don’t yet have yet, or that we no longer have. When our focus is purely on those things, it is easy to overlook that which is going well, the things that are working, and the things we have […]
Here they come! The winter holidays can be stressful, and also can bring up many emotions. Some of these emotions can be good ones, some not so good. If you are lonely, or have financial stress, or recently went through a loss, the holidays can be downright frustrating. I’ve made a little list of some […]
This will likely be the first of many musings on compost, because I think compost is really cool. You can put so many things into the compost, and like magic, these things turn into fertile soil. Some of the things I put in the compost hold good memories, like the pumpkins I carve with friends […]
In this part of Colorado, it is good to protect the roses for the winter, but not for the reasons some may assume. We have a freeze/thaw cycle in the late winter and early spring and the roses need protection from the warmth rather than the cold during this time. So, once the ground is […]
I have a three year old friend. One day, when she thought no one could see her, she was climbing a piece of furniture while declaring loudly, “I WILL NOT FALL DOWN!” In reality, the probability of her falling was high, but she seemed pretty convinced that just announcing that she wouldn’t, at the top […]
Today I’ve got old houses on my mind. I think that fixing up an old house has many parallels to therapy. In an old house, you have no idea what you might find behind the walls, and you may put off any sort of project until something breaks. Perhaps you call an electrician because your […]